Today In SEO & Search News: February 3, 2017

This content is 2 years old. Please, read this page keeping its age in mind as SEO changes rapidly and while the past is useful to remember and reference, it often doesn't provide the best strategies to apply today.

Sadly I have to start this post with an apology. Rather than covering the past 24 hours it will be covering the last 48. Clients always have to come first and while I started a post yesterday my obligations to those who keep the lights on stopped me from finishing it. And so it gets completed on a Friday evening. Nonetheless, reading through the days events and sharing them with our valued readers is task I enjoy and so let’s jump right to the good part … the events of the the past 24 … err … 48 hours.

Duane Joins Yext Ending a very brief bivouac Duane Forrester is heading over to Yext to join their team as their VP of Industry Insights. It’s going to be very interesting to see what comes of the move and what’s on the horizon for Yext with Duane added to their team. Congrats to both.

We mentioned the automation of ad creation by Google via the AdWords system a couple days ago here. Well today Danny Goodwin over on Search Engine Journal dug into it and answers some questions about what they’re actually doing and what control advertisers have.

Google Patent For Social Groups Google was granted a patent on January 31, 2017 to suggest next destinations to members of the network. Bill Slawski over on SEO By The Sea gave a solid analysis of the patent and it’s potential uses and impact. Google may not use social signals in their algorithm (if you ask them) but they’re definitely interested in augmenting user destinations based on them.

When To Bid On The AdWords Local Inventory Andy Taylor wrote a solid piece for Search Engine Land with advice on what to consider when bidding on the AdWords local inventory vs regular product listing ads. Very good advice and if you’re into local SEO and sell products it’s definitely worth the read.

Google Algorithm Update There’s been an unconfirmed Google algorithm update reported on Search Engine Land by Barry Schwartz. It appears to have hit those who have done aggressive link building and appears to be related to the devaluing of such links. Basically, a Penguin tweak. We at Beanstalk have also seem some fluctuations so it’s going to be interesting to see how things play out through next week.

Google Expands Carousels Well we can’t say that Google isn’t testing usability. Barry Schwartz (yes him again) reported on Search Engine Land (yes – them again) about a test Google is running allowing users to filter down their search results by category. Whether this is permanent or a test to gain insight into what users want with specific queries is yet to be determined (in my opinion) but for now the results look like:

Refurbishing Content Britney Mueller over at Moz did an interesting Whiteboard Friday on refurbishing your old content. Re-purposing your old and highly valued (dare I say “linked” content) can be a great way to engage your users and get more from all your hard work. Here’s what she had to say:

Facebook Recognizing Objects In Photos Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Journal reported yesterday on a development by Facebook’s AI team that they have built a visual search system called Lumos. To use their example. you can search “black shirt photo” and the system will understand what you’re looking for and find photos that match. Time will tell on it’s usefulness and durability. They couldn’t do worse than Google’s fiasco back in July of 2015.

Google Knowledge Panel Promotion Box We talked earlier about Google testing new featured and functions. Well here’s another. Barry Schwartz (busy guy) reported on Search Engine Land of the testing of a promotional area inside the knowledge panel. Basically it’s a space for Google My Business owners to advertise specific promotions. Read the article for full information but it looks like: